Chalk - Why We Need to Be Human

For a change of pace, our class watched an interesting video today entitled "Chalk". The video comically portrayed the experiences of fictional novice high school teachers. Of course, the movie chose to portray the archetypes of educators. We've all had them before. They included, but were not limited to, the inanimate and uninteresting history teacher, an over-enthusiastic female gym teacher, the teacher who was always trying to be your "buddy", and an administrator who didn't know how to handle authority. The typical situations that these characters dealt always ended up mishandled, and at times served as a sort of "how not to teach" 'mock'umentary. From the movie, I expected to be floored at how ineffective these comical novices were, and that I would have no trouble responding to their gross inadequacies. There were a few instances where I got what I expected. However, for most of the movie, I was thrilled at how wonderfully imperfect these everyday people were.

This satisfaction got me thinking about my own teachers. Did I ever have a perfect teacher, who was always prepared, always cheerful, and always interesting? Never. There is no such thing as a perfect human being, and there is no such thing as a perfect teacher. However, we can turn our human faults into wonderful tools for effective education. That is, if a person is truly dedicated to education for education's sake, they can transform their entire selves into a beacon of educational passion, faults and all. The real life moral of Chalk's story is that things in the real world, especially in education, do not turn out the way we expect them to. A good educator is a person that can take a bumpy road and transform it into a journey.

Life and education are extremely similar in this way. If everything turns out for the best, then we are missing half of the human experience. In a classroom, if nothing emotionally charged (or, for a lack of a better descriptor, "human") happens, nobody learns a thing. The teacher's skills remain stagnant, and the students are bored to tears. The teachers in Chalk were not the most effective educators that they could have been, but that was mostly because a lampoon was exactly what they were after. In real life, every teacher (yes, even the egotistical "in it to win it" history teacher) would find positive aspects of their own personalities and employ them effectively in the classroom.

Old Hands and Starfish

Tonight, for our Monday evening class session, our class was lucky enough to be visited by Mr. Steve Chambliss, who is a forty year veteran to education. The story of his career was unconventional to be sure. After Mr. Chambliss finished his undergraduate, and then his masters degree, he went to work in Carpentersville, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago.

Mr. Chambliss's background is typical for a modern Luther student. He had a small town upbringing, and went to a modestly sized school. I was expecting him to mention that after his move to the suburbs, he experienced his fair amount of culture shock. You can say that it shocked me when Mr. Chambliss said that working in the city suburbs was the "biggest mistake of [his] life", but that would be an understatement.

Mr. Chambliss went on to explain this statement, stating that he "wasn't prepared to help so many" and that the amount of poverty he had to handle was too much for him in his early career. This is a reasonable story, and understandable. He bit off more than he could chew for his first big gig. However, throughout his conversation with us, he cites more instances about how students from impoverished families have trouble making good decisions because they didn't have the same upbringing as the typical small-town middle classer. He even went on to say "Public schools in metropolitan areas have failed and can't be rescued". I apologize if I generalize Mr. Chambliss's message too broadly, but overall, he seemed to be suggesting that more money in the schools equals better kids. This is incorrect. More money in schools means more opportunities for kids like organized sport teams, band, or other extra-curriculars, but that does not mean that better quality people come out of those schools. As a kid who grew up in Chicago, I take offense to the suggestion that city kids don't know how to deal with the real world just because their elementary school didn't have a soccer team.

There's an old story here that rang in my head as soon as Mr. Chambliss, while on the subject of poor public schools, said these words: "You can't save everybody". Please excuse my segue as I retell that story here.

There's an old man and several young children on the beach, playing in the water. Time passes, and the tide recedes, exposing hundreds upon hundreds of starfish to the sun. The children know that the starfish will die within a few minutes of being exposed to the open sun, so the children immediately begin to pick up as many starfish as they can and throw them back into the ocean. The old man stops one of them and says that their work is pointless, that the children will never be able to save all of the starfish on the beach. However, the children work on, with a smile, knowing that while they cannot save every starfish, they make a difference with every fish they save. This is the attitude that we need to approach education with. In education, there is always hope, and there is always a noble cause.

Mr. Chambliss went on to say that after his urban experience, including the turbulent era where whites and blacks were sharing a classroom for the first time, he decided he would go back to Decorah to become the superintendant for the Winnesheik county public schools. He explained that after such an intense experience, he needed to be back in an environment he was comfortable with. There is only one part of this that I feel I need to pick apart. Mr. Chambliss explained that being out of one's comfort zone was a wonderful thing, and that it more than anything makes an educator grow professionally. If this is true, why would Mr. Chambliss move to a place like Decorah, a town just like what he's used to?

Perhaps teaching during such a tough time can wear a person out. Perhaps a person does require a change of pace every so often. Mr. Chambliss's advice was wonderful and helpful, but some of his own actions required some closer examination. I respect him and thank him very much for his time, kind words, and patience with my prying questions. It is, after all, my job to ask them.

New Information from Young Educators

This Monday, our class had the opportunity to talk to three new educators in the field. Upon their introductions, I realized that there was something very... homogeneous about them. All three of them grew up in North-east Iowa. All three of them went to college at Luther. All three of them went to work right here in Decorah. I was happy for the chance to talk to people in the field, but I was hoping for a selection with a more diverse background at the very least. At any rate, I still received extremely useful information and made some observations that both surprised me and reassured me.

Most of our discussion centered around the qualms of the modern educator. Technology is a wonderful tool to employ in the classroom, but how much is too much? All three of the educators that we talked to cited several instances when technology has been more of a hassle than help. In today's world, it is completely normal for a junior high or even middle school student to own a cell phone or a laptop. This overexposure to technology is causing students to lose touch to what were essential experiences to our generation (I realize the irony that I just expressed this opinion in an internet blog, and I too am becoming a product of this trend). One general consensus was that when kids go outside now, they have no idea what to do. The experience of being outside is unrewarding for them. With all the possibilities available to young children now, why would you go outside and freeze yourself for twenty minutes when you could slay goblins in World of Warcraft or text a joke to your friends? The burden here, at it's very base, is on the parents. Technology is a tool, not a crutch. It is helpful, but not necessary. Parents need to instill this in kids at a very young age if a healthy balance between real life and technology will ever occur.

Something that I found very intriguing about these teachers was their varying demeanor. The personalities of these three people were so different from each other, ranging from 'strictly professional' to the special education teacher and coach who proclaimed that during his years at Luther he was "All American at Roscoe's" (Roscoe's is Decorah's local dive, almost exclusive to the college student crowd). In all of our textbooks, we get portraits of what the 'perfect teacher' is like, right down to the polished apple on the desk. It is really nerve wracking to think sometimes that maybe you won't make the cut, that maybe you can't be that perfect educator. It was refreshing to see three very people who behave very differently in the classroom who were all successful, responsible, and most importantly, hired.

Seeing these real people stand in front of me was a well needed wake up call. There are some days of school that drag on. Sometimes in classes, I catch myself asking why I will need to know the material. The fine educators that were kind enough to talk to the class testified to the fact that the program here at Luther is really one of the finest. There are so many hoops to jump through here, it is a very daunting task only for the brave. Knowing that it can be done, that success is more likely than not, and that Luther is indeed giving me real and useful tools I will need is incredible, and most of all, this was the most important piece of information I received from our panel of teachers.

Paper Clips

By now, the story of the Paper Clip Project is well known to people studying World War II or the Holocaust, and the story really is quite touching. A tiny classroom in the small community of Whitwell in rural Tennessee gathers together to learn how the world went mad. In the course of their studies, the class comes to the realization that while the Holocaust ended the lives of six million people, the students have never seen six million of anything. In order to represent this seemingly abstract number, they decide to collect six million paper clips, to represent the victims of the most horrible deed in history. The class writes to celebrities and politicians all over the world, is covered by German reporters, and eventually have their paper clips immortalized in an authentic German rail car, one used during the Holocaust to transport prisoners to concentration camps. Every normal person who hears the story or watches the film about the project is moved, sometimes to tears, about how these students learned to overcome adversity, and how important it is to remember our past so that we may not be doomed to repeat it. However, in our Educational Psychology class, we could not simply leave it at that. We observed how this group of students worked as a classroom, the material covered, the appropriateness of the material, and whether or not this project achieved real academic and measurable progress in learning for these students.

First off, as observers of a classroom, I had to ask: Is this unit even appropriate for these students? The students participating in this project were in middle school, aged eleven to thirteen. This project involved graphic depictions, texts, and accounts from survivors that are gut-wrenchingly unbearable even for adults. Was it right for these teachers to go so far into depth with this material?

This subject was extremely sensitive for me. It is my personal belief that these kids were just at the right age to start learning about the nitty gritty of this material. If they were any younger, they would not understand the full implications of the horrors of the Holocaust. Several of the Paper Clips students were brought to tears during this project. To me, this is almost a wonderful thing. There is no way to dance around a topic like mass execution. A heavy emotional reaction tells me that the student really connects and understands the full extent of the issue. An emotionally healthy student in this age range will be upset, but for all the right reasons.

Secondly, did this class achieve documented improvement in these students' understanding of history? The educational philosopher E. L. Thorndike believed that numbers are the most useful tool for measuring how much a student learns in a class. Can we measure how much the students learned in the Paper Clips project by testing or statistics?

On a personal note, I will have to put forward that I do not care very much for Dr. Thorndike's ideas about education, but if I must answer this question according to his rules, I will. Did these students learn something that can be shown on paper? Of course they did! Should they have to document it by testing. According to this editorial source, no, they should not. The Holocaust was one of the most pivotal moments in world history, and because these students learned so much about it in such a positive way, perhaps their aptness and interest in world history will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Paper Clips was a true alignment of stars. It was a wonderful classroom, with a wonderful project, with wonderful teachers, and wonderful students that learned some of the most important material a history class could ever cover. It was truly an unforgettable experience for the students involved and the faculty, and whether observing as a normal outside spectator or a prying and questioning education student, it is almost impossible to find a fault with this program. Because of this project, hopefully, these students will always want to go beyond the book with material learned in the classroom.